julian_best-practices | Stripe Developers | Page 1

zenith parcelBOT Oct 16, 2024, 3:23 PM

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proud ploverBOT Oct 16, 2024, 3:23 PM

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limpid seal Oct 16, 2024, 3:24 PM

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Hi 👋 Subscription Invoices are for the next billing period, unless you're using a metered price in which case they bill in arrears:
https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/usage-based

dapper bane Oct 16, 2024, 3:30 PM

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Hi @limpid seal thank you.

I evaluated Usage-based billing but ran into a blocker given the quantities needing to be an integer in the Meter and MeterEvents and the product needing to show in the Inovice as a "Monthly" product.

Since the product quantity should reflect a monthly product, I would not be able to imitate proration if a subscription started mid month as the value would have to be an integer.

Is there an alternative that would allow me to do this without changing the unit to be something like "daily"?

limpid seal Oct 16, 2024, 3:34 PM

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I don't believe so.

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I think instead you would need to avoid using Subscriptions and create your own Invoice Items and Invoices instead.

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When creating an Invoice Item you can manually specify the period that it is for:
https://docs.stripe.com/api/invoiceitems/create#create_invoiceitem-period

zenith parcelBOT Oct 16, 2024, 3:45 PM

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dapper bane Oct 16, 2024, 3:45 PM

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Yes, I was fearing imitating the Subscription in-house would be the solution.

In the https://docs.stripe.com/api/invoiceitems/create#create_invoiceitem-period DOCS the following is stated

period | object
The period associated with this invoice item. When set to different values, the period will be rendered on the invoice. If you have Stripe Revenue Recognition enabled, the period will be used to recognize and defer revenue. See the Revenue Recognition documentation for details.

I found this https://docs.stripe.com/revenue-recognition/methodology/subscriptions-and-invoicing

If I understood this correctly could I do the following?

Create a Product with a Monthly Billing Period and Price $100/month
Wait for the 1st of November to run a cron
Create an Invoice Item with the Period between the 15th of October and 31st of October
The invoice would automatically handle the "partial" cost of the monthly price between the 15th and the 31st of October (Similar to Proration on Subscriptions)

On the next billing cycle I would do the same but hypothetically the value would be full because the full monthly period was provided

hexed crescent Oct 16, 2024, 3:48 PM

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Hello! I'm taking over and catching up...

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That seems like it's worth a try in test mode to see if it will suit your needs, yeah.

dapper bane Oct 16, 2024, 3:51 PM

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Great, will do. Should I update this thread with the outcome?

Thank you for the very prompt and helpful support. I've been running around in circles for a while 🥴 .

Cheers!

hexed crescent Oct 16, 2024, 3:51 PM

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You can if you wish, it's up to you and if you have more questions or not.

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Also note that we close idle threads, but you're always welcome to create a new thread if you have more questions later and this thread is closed. 🙂

dapper bane Oct 16, 2024, 4:03 PM

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I just tried the approach above in the Test Dashboard and the following happened:

When creating the invoice, the Price could not be a Price with an Interval and had to be a "One-time" price which was created at that point
I could attach a "Supply date" from Oct 1 to Oct 2
The Invoice was generated with the item and the time period in the same visual format as a proration in a subscription
Price still showed up as $90 USD

Is this a reasonable test or did I miss something?

hexed crescent Oct 16, 2024, 4:04 PM

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Ah, I think I misunderstood what you were describing. Recurring prices must be used with Subscriptions. One-off Invoices only support one-time payments.

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Essentially what was suggested above is that you build the custom subscription logic you need on your end, then use Stripe for the payments piece. It might make sense to create one-off Invoices for each of your own custom subscription periods, or it might make sense to also implement your own custom invoices and only use Stripe for the low-level payment piece by using Payment Intents.

dapper bane Oct 16, 2024, 4:07 PM

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Got it got it. If I go the route of One-off invoices, is there a way to not have the Prices get appended to the Product catalog with any price that is new?

hexed crescent Oct 16, 2024, 4:09 PM

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A Price is required, but you can use price_data to generate one when you create the Invoice Item, and the Price created from the data you provide won't show up in the Dashboard: https://docs.stripe.com/api/invoiceitems/create#create_invoiceitem-price_data

dapper bane Oct 16, 2024, 4:10 PM

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Woah great to know about the price_data not adding it to the Dashboard!

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As a follow up question, out of curiosity, is price_data what proration in the Subscription uses?

hexed crescent Oct 16, 2024, 4:12 PM

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I don't believe so, no. Proration is kind of it's own special thing.

dapper bane Oct 16, 2024, 4:17 PM

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Sweet, I'll run with this

Cheers Rubeus!

#julian_best-practices